backdrops look phoney. The
brightest performances hit
the mark. Branagh’s sleuth is
entertaining (even if the film’s
insistence on psychoanalysing
him is a drag); Emma Mackey
(from Sex Education) is
wild-eyed as Jacqueline,
Simon’s jilted ex; and Sophie
Okonedo plays a growling
blues singer — a drastically
reworked version of the
book’s Salome Otterbourne,
a romance novelist.
Branagh’s corny yet
spirited movie seems a victimptian curse
As the revolution unravels in
Robert Icke’s compelling
production of Animal Farm,
the animals complain that
they were going to be allowed
a three-day week. They were
going to “take back control”.
But Icke does not overdo any
topical parallels. No pig is
actually called Dominic or
Boris. Animal Farm offers
wider truths.
Puccini’s La rondine,
Verdi’s Requiem and echoes
of Elgar are used for music,
and George Orwell’s allegory
about communism is done
with War Horse-style puppets.
The ruling pigs have
concertina-shaped torsos and
bossy gaits. Hens peck and
tweak and flap just as in life,
although the cockerel’s
cock-a-doodle-doo could do
with some attention. The
puppet for Boxer, the trusting
Clydesdale horse who labours
hard for the pigs, is a beauty:
monumental shoulders and
the dignified tread of a
horny-hoofed worker, even as
the revolution he supported
turns cannibalistic and the
porcine leaders turn into the
autocrats they replaced.
This 90-minute piece is
marketed as a children’s show
and there were certainly a few
young teenagers in the
audience when I caught it at
Birmingham Rep, but adults
may get more out of it.
Napoleon the pig cancels the
animals’ weekly assembly. His
rivals are denounced as
traitors. The ideals of the late
“father of the revolution”,
Major, are bent out of shape as
Napoleon’s cronies seize
power. Boxer and others doAimed at kids, Robert Icke’s Animal Farm is a grown-up delight
the heavy lifting while the pigs
concentrate on “brain work”.
You could almost call them
technocrats or special
advisers. And, yes, they end
up drinking and strutting
around on two legs, in
defiance of the Eight
Commandments.
It is superbly done. Icke,
supported by the puppets of
Toby Olié and designs of
Bunny Christie, has plenty of
fun with the story. The early
moments, when the animals
topple Farmer Jones, are done
with a jauntiness redolent of
Nick Park’s Wallace and
Gromit. During a pitched
battle with the farmers,
Harold the wood pigeon takes
a direct hit and drops
earthwards to the whine of an
aeroplane in terminal
descent. Yet the content is
firmly political. Napoleon
runs a version of Project Fear
by creating invisible enemies.
There is sloganised rhetoric to
impress dimmer animals —
“give each sausage a dignified
burial!” Mollie the mare
wishes she could wear the
ribbons she was given by
humans but these are now
condemned as “symbols of
oppression”. It will grip
children and adults alike.
At Newbury’s Watermill
Theatre, Spike describes the
radio-comedy years of Spike
Milligan. The Goon Show
became, despite the efforts of
stuff-shirt BBC managers, atremendous success, pulling
in four million listeners an
episode. The pressure of
writing its scripts gave Milligan
a nervous breakdown. One
night he beat down Peter
Sellers’s door, intending to kill
him. Milligan’s weapon was,
er, a potato knife. “What are
you going to do?” Sellers
asked. “Peel me to death?”
If you liked the Goons you’ll
love it. Jeremy Lloyd catches
Harry Secombe’s infectious
merriment and George Kemp
does some of Sellers’s voices,
even if he looks nothing like
him. Younger theatregoers
may be tickled by how radio
technicians (Margaret
Cabourn-Smith) used to create
sound effects: a chopped
cabbage to convey a
guillotined head, a flapped
umbrella to catch the beating
of birds’ wings. Milligan ( John
Dagleish) calls the BBC the Big
Brother Corporation. No
change there, then. Mention
of the 1950s licence fee being
£1 brought sardonic laughter.
Ian Hislop and Nick
Newman’s play concentrates
on entertaining its audience
rather than suffocating it with
right-on messages. The Arts
Council, which has become
every bit as priggish and deaf
as the BBC suits who tried to
neuter Milligan, will take a
very dim view. cFor theatre tickets, visit
thetimes.co.uk/ticketsQUENTIN
LETTS
Animal Farm
Touring
HHHHHSpike
Watermill Theatre, Newbury
HHHH| THEATRE
Workhorse Trusting Boxer,
who gives his all for the pigsA fine puppet regime
of its own Egyptian curse.
Several of its stars loaded the
paddle steamer with their
own unwanted baggage. Made
in 2019, the film had its release
delayed by Covid and now
finds itself with two stars,
Wright and Brand, dogged by
their antivax sentiments. At
least Wright’s performance
— as one of the nobler
passengers — is likeable, but
Brand’s — as a melancholy
doctor — is so muted that his
usual persona never surfaces.
The biggest problem is
Hammer. Last year several
women accused him of sexual
abuse and, in the case of one,
rape. Leaked messages
allegedly sent by the star
described sexual fantasies
involving cannibalism.
He has denied the
accusations, but seeing him
play the sexually aggressive
Simon — described in the film
as an “engorged stallion”
— might not be your idea of a
comfortable night out. c MANUEL HARLANShallow water The cast
of Death on the NilePoirot’s
moustache
now has an
origin story
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